match."

He paused to light a cigar and as soon as he got it well started took up
the conversation again.

"It's just as I suspected in regard to Rad, though I will say the papers
furnished mighty few clues. It was the coat that put me on the track
coupled with his behavior at the hotel. You see his emotions when he
came out of that cave were mixed. There was probably a good deal of
disappointment and grief down below his anger, but that for the moment
was decidedly in the lead. He had been badly treated, and he knew it.
What's more, he didn't care who else knew it. He was in a thoroughly
vicious mood and ready to wreak his anger on the first thing that came
to hand. That happened to be his horse. By the time he got home he had
expended the most of his temper and his disappointment had come to the
top. You found him wrestling with that. By evening he had brought his
philosophy into play, and had probably decided to brace up and try
again. And that," he finished, "is the whole story of our young
gentleman's erratic behavior."

"I wonder I didn't think of it myself," I said.

Terry smiled and said nothing.

"Radnor is naturally not loquacious about the matter," he resumed
presently. "For one thing, because he does not wish to drag Polly's name
into it, for another, I suppose he feels that if anyone is to do the
explaining, she ought to be the one. He supposed that she would be
present at the inquest and that her testimony would bring out sufficient
facts to clear him. When he found that she was not there, and that her
testimony did not touch on any important phase of the matter, he simply
shut his mouth and said, 'Very well! If she won't tell, I won't.' Also,
the coroner's manner was unfortunate. He showed that his sympathy was on
the other side; and Radnor stubbornly determined not to say one word
more than was dragged out of him by main force. It is much the attitude
of the little boy who has been unfairly punished, and who derives an
immense amount of satisfaction from the thought of how sorry his friends
will be when he is dead. And now, I think we have Rad's case well in
hand. In spite of the fact that he seems bound to be hung, we shall not
have much difficulty in getting him off."

"But what I can't understand," I grumbled, "is why that little wretch
didn't tell me a word of all this. She came and informed me off-hand
that he was innocent and asked me to clear him, with never a hint that
she could explain t